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Introduction
This is a busy time of the year for most people.
We’re running around trying to get stuff ready for Christmas.
Making travel and family arrangements.
We’re doing all of this while working, or taking care of kids, or both.
You would think that the holidays would be a time for rest, but it’s really a time for stress.
But this is the way much of life is, isn’t it?
Our lives are so busy, so filled with work and errands that we rarely have time for ourselves.
If work, errands, and kids aren’t enough, sometimes life sends storms our way, and we have to find a way to navigate through those storms.
When we finally lay our heads down at night, we sometimes just toss and turn.
Psalm 22:1-2.
Do you ever feel this way?
My point is this: our lives are sometimes very restless, and this is why we long for rest.
This is what we are going to talk about in this lesson.
We are going to talk about rest from a biblical perspective.
God has promised us a gift… The greatest gift that could ever be given.
He has promised us rest.
We are going take a tour through scripture to see what God teaches us about rest.
Rest In The Beginning
When reading through Genesis 1, we see a pattern emerge.
Six times, we read, “There was evening and morning, the ___ day.”
This pattern continues through most of the days of creation.
But when we get to the seventh day, we see something different.
Genesis 2:1-3.
It’s almost as if the seventh day never ended.
I think that Moses wants us to see that life in the garden was rest.
He’s is making a symbolic point.
In a figurative way, the seventh day didn’t end after verse 3.
So, Adam and Eve were put into the garden to enjoy God’s rest, but this didn’t mean that they didn’t have any responsibilities.
They were told to be fruitful and multiply, to work and keep the garden, and to exercise dominion over God’s creation.
This work was not toil.
It wasn’t by the sweat of their brow.
They had responsibilities, but they were still living in God’s rest.
So, Adam and eve were able to enjoy this rest, and if they remained faithful to God, then all of humanity would enjoy experience it as well, but this isn’t what happens.
Adam and Eve were blessed with God’s rest, but they weren’t content.
So, instead of guiding all of humanity into rest, Adam plunged us all into restlessness because now we live in a broken world
But God gave us hope, didn’t he?
Genesis 3:15.
God promised that there would be a second Adam who would destroy the tempter in the garden, and the implication is that this second Adam would lead God’s people to rest.
So, from that moment, people were looking forward to this rest.
Genesis 4:1.
It’s possible that Eve believes that this child is the promised offspring, but we know the story.
He’s not.
Cain was unable to rule over himself or sin that was crouching at the door.
Genesis 5:28-29.
Lamech believes that Noah’s the one who will give man rest from their toil, but he doesn’t.
Just like Adam, God tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply, but just like Adam, Noah eats of the wrong fruit and was found to be naked because of that fruit.
Neither Cain, nor Noah, would be the ones who would give humanity rest…
But God does have a plan.
Promised Rest For Israel
God’s plan begins with Abraham and Israel, the nation that comes from him.
This nation begins its history in Egypt as slaves, and so you can image that their lives were very restless.
So, as soon as they leave Egyptian slavery, God gives them the 10 Commandments and tells them to keep the Sabbath.
Exodus 20:8-11.
God gave them the gift of rest.
The purpose of this Sabbath was not only to remind the people of how God had blessed them, but it also gave them something to look forward to: a better rest.
So, Rest was a part of the Israelites’ DNA.
Every seventh day, the people were supposed to rest… God would provide for them.
Every seventh year, the people were supposed to rest for an entire year.
They weren’t supposed to work the land because God would provide for them.
They weren’t supposed to work that entire year because in the sixth year, God would provide enough harvest to last for three years.
Also, debts were forgiven during this seventh year
Every forty-ninth year, the people would celebrate the year of Jubilee.
They would rest for a year, debts would be forgiven, slaves would be freed, and if you had to sell your property, then you would receive it back.
The Israelites would be constantly reminded, not only of the rest that God provided them as his people, but also of ultimate rest that God would provide for his people on the last day.
God gave the Israelites a great gift… the gift of rest.
Leviticus 26:6.
Don’t you wish we had something like this?
Rejected Rest
How did the Israelites respond to God’s rest?
Ezekiel 20:12-13.
Here we are told that while the people were in the wilderness, they rebelled against, God.
But not only this, they also profaned the Sabbath.
Amos 8:4-8.
God hoped that his generous gift of the Sabbath would encourage his people to be generous with one another, but this is not what happened.
Instead, they used the Sabbath to take advantage of one another.
They saw the sabbath as a burden, and not as God’s gift to them.
As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence that the people ever gave the land rest every seven years or celebrated the year of Jubilee.
Because of this, God’s people go into captivity.
2 Chronicles 36:20-21.
Since the people refuse to obey God regarding the Sabbath rest for the land, God sends the people into captivity and provides rest for the land in that way.
When they return home from captivity, God’s people seem to have learned their lesson.
Nehemiah 10:31.
But just a little while later, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to see the people working on the Sabbath.
So, throughout the OT, we see that the Israelites failed to keep Sabbath.
They rejected God’s gift of rest to them.
Rest In Jesus
When we move forward to the time of Jesus, we see that the keeping of Sabbath had moved from one extreme to another.
Sabbath was supposed to be God’s gift to mankind, but the religious leaders turned it into a burden by adding additional rules to it.
So as Jesus is spreading his good news he give the people an invitation to God’s rest.
Matthew 11:28.
This reminds us of the promised one from Genesis 3 who would do what Adam could not.
Adam was supposed to guide all of humanity into rest, but instead, his sin caused a broken, restless world.
So, what does Jesus do?
Psalm 22:1-2.
Jesus accepted the restlessness of the cross so that he could provide us with rest.
God’s Ultimate Rest
But the question is: when?
Hebrews 4:9-11.
The Holy spirit promises us that in the same way that God brought the Israelites into the land, he will also bring us into rest.
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